Economics Commons^™

Perceived Quality Of Asian Brands In The Automobile Industry, Adrien Gatesman '05

Honors Projects

I use a hedonic pricing model to analyze which characteristics consumers are willing to pay more for, and to determine whether consumers are willing to pay more for one specific brand name when all other factors are held constant. Section II of this paper reviews previous research on demand for automobiles. Section III develops the theory, Section IV explains the empirical model, including the data set, Section V discusses the results, and Section VI concludes with suggestions for future research.

Technical Change, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (1989, July). Two basic comments on Duménil’s evaluation of the new technique and the profit rate [Handwritten notes]. Unpublished manuscript.

• Shaikh, A. (1982, November 2). Duménil paper on TROP [Handwritten notes discussing balanced growth, technical change, competition, and business cycles]. Unpublished manuscript.

• Shaikh, A. (n.d.). Two states A & B [Handwritten notes discussing capital-output ratio and real wage]. Unpublished manuscript.

• (2005, September 20). Classical biased technical change approach and its relevance to reality [Referee’s report for International Review of Applied Economics on Hiroaki Sasaki’s paper]. Unpublished manuscript.

• Sawyer, M. (2005, June 8). Letter to Anwar …

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Beyond Gender Differences In U.S. Life Cycle Happiness, Enrico A. Macelli, Richard A. Easterlin

Economics Faculty Publication Series

We employ two decades of General Social Survey data consisting of 83 birth cohorts from 1893 to 1975 to estimate the influence of satisfaction in seven life domains (family, finances, work, health, friends, place of residence, and leisure time activity) on life-cycle happiness among men and women aged 18 to 89 years in the United States. The adult population is estimated to be happiest at age 51, and men are estimate to surpass women in happiness at age 48. Contrary to both genetic or personality (e.g., traditional gender role) and access to resources (“more is always better”) explanations of happiness, …

Why Equality? How Equality?: The Desirability Of A Focus On Income Distribution, Arthur Macewan

Economics Faculty Publication Series

Much of the discussion of economic development in low and middle income countries and of poverty reduction has either ignored the issue of income distribution or has tended to view income distribution only in terms of its impact on economic growth. In this paper I argue that such an approach is misguided. I will explain, first, why I believe that it is desirable to give a great deal of attention to income distribution in the analysis of economic development and poverty reduction. My argument includes conceptual, political and practical elements. Second, I will suggest some of the ways in which …

Massachusetts Recovery Stronger Than First Thought, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Massachusetts is still in the early stages of the recovery that began in the spring of 2003, but it may still be a couple of years more before it feels as if the recession is finally over. That “feel good” time will come only when unemployment is low enough for the state to achieve what economists call “full employment.” Currently, recent employment estimates from the payroll survey suggest that demand for the products and services supplied by Massachusetts producers is finally outstripping the ability of employers to meet that demand with existing employees. The result is that payroll employment is …

A Groundhog Day Economy In The Bay State, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The Bay State’s economic expansion peaked in December 2000, when the MassBenchmarks Current Economic Index, which is a proxy for gross state product, reached 150.2. But even before reaching that peak, warning signs were on the horizon. The MassBenchmarks Leading Economic Index, which forecasts changes in gross state product six months hence, turned negative in November 2000 and, except for one month, stayed negative for a year. The Current Index did not rise again until April 2003 and since then has risen at a stubbornly slow pace. While there have been eight successive quarters of growth in the Current Index, …

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The Massachusetts economy is recovering, but at a relatively slow pace that is consistent with the state’s experience coming out of the last recession. Job creation continues to lag, and the Commonwealth faces continuing economic challenges, including strengthening the technology sector and addressing worker migration.

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, 1st Quarter, 2005, Armstrong Atlantic State University Center For Regional Analysis

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor

The Coastal Empire Economic Indicators are designed to provide continuously updating quarterly snapshots of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area economy. The coincident index measures the current economic heartbeat of the region. The leading index provides a short term forecast of the region’s economic activity in six to nine months.

Estimating Models Of Complex Fdi: Are There Third-Country Effects?, Badi H. Baltagi, Peter Egger, Michael Pfaffermayr

Center for Policy Research

The recent general equilibrium theory of trade and multinationals emphasizes the importance of third countries and the complex integration strategies of multinationals. Little has been done to test this theory empirically. This paper attempts to rectify this situation by considering not only bilateral determinants, but also spatially weighted third-country determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI). Since the dependency among host markets is particularly related to multinationals' trade between them, we use trade costs (distances) as spatial weights. Using panel data on U.S. industries and host countries observed over the 1989-1999 period, we estimate a "complex FDI" version of the knowledge-capital …

The Role Of Gender And Race In Determining Returns To Higher Education: Evidence From Annual Demographic Survey, Gayatri Rajendra Deshpande

Masters Culminating Experiences (1993-2011)

This study’s objective is to determine the net present values (NPV) of both a master’s degree and Ph.D. degree for six demographic categories. One of the purposes of this study is to determine whether from a social perspective a master’s and Ph.D. degree should be pursued. Cost/benefit analysis is performed to determine whether social benefits exceed social costs of these degree programs. The goal is to determine whether it is advantageous to society to obtain more education. A second and equally important purpose of this study is to determine the role of gender and race in establishing returns to higher …

Economic Welfare Change In Poor Neighborhoods, Lulu Kevin Wang

Masters Culminating Experiences (1993-2011)

This paper provided investigation on economic welfare changes in poor neighborhoods in U.S. central cities during the 1990's. Using Census data for 1990 and 2000, this study found that the association between changes in family median income of poor neighborhoods and changes in family median income of their metropolitan areas was not statistically significant. The empirical evidence indicated that welfare changes in poor neighborhoods were detached from those of their metropolitan areas. The study also tested the correlation between the changes in family income level and other economic factors in poor neighborhoods during 1990's. The test results suggest that government …

Direct Selling By Urban Farmers: Constraints In Value Creation, Albert C. Manyengawana

Masters Culminating Experiences (1993-2011)

According to Heimlich (1989), one of the leading development economists who has published several articles on small and urban farming, there are two major forms of urban farms namely backyard gardens and community gardens. These may, further be classified into recreational, adaptive, and traditional farms. Urban farms emerged as a direct response to beautify the landscape, provide food security and serve as an additional income source. Over time, changes in the farming sector allowed farmers to adopt direct marketing initiatives, circumventing the intermediaries in the distribution chain. These tactics of selling directly to consumers included farmers’ markets, road-side sales, and …

Feasibility And Timing Of The Euro Adoption By The New Eu Member States, Lucjan Orlowski

WCBT Faculty Publications

The 10 new member states are now facing the challenge of framing and implementing policies for adopting the euro. They are all bound by the EU Treaty to replace their national currencies with the euro at some future time as they were admitted to the Union with a derogation to this effect. In order to prepare adequately for entry to the euro area, the candidates need to undergo fiscal and monetary convergence. In principle, they should refrain from lax fiscal policies that could skew the eurozone policy mix by forcing the European Central Bank (ECB) to tighten monetary policy. They …

An Empirical Review Of Us Corporate Default Swap Valuation: The Implications Of Functional Forms, Kwamie Dunbar

WCBT Faculty Publications

This paper first develops a reduced form three-factor model for valuing credit default premia that is used to provide implicit prices which are then compared with market prices of credit default swaps to determine if swap rates adequately reflects market risks. This model extends Jarrow (2001) two-factor model by adding three new features to enhance the effectiveness of the model and add to the growing debate on the empirical pricing of credit default swap and the effectiveness of reduce form models. Firstly, the extended model retains Jarrow's mean reverting properties but will be extended to be arbitrage free because of …

Trade, Growth & Poverty, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes.

• Shaikh, A., PhD. (2001, May 7). ECO 108: R. Bernal, globalization and size [Unpublished handwritten notes]. Manuscript.

• Wedderburn, J. (2001, October 17). Letter to Anwar Shaikh regarding the Seventh Conference of the Association of Caribbean Economists (ACE) [Unpublished letter]. Manuscript.

• Wedderburn, J. (2001, October 17). Request from the Association of Caribbean Economists [Unpublished email correspondence]. Manuscript.

• Association of Caribbean Economists. (n.d.). VII Conference of Caribbean Economists: Preliminary programme (follow-up) [Unpublished conference document]. Manuscript.

• Greenhouse, S. (2005, May 12). Forced labor said to bind 12.3 million people around the world. The New …

Adam Smith And Greed, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

The virtues of greed have been widely promoted by some economists in the 20th century. Allegedly it is Adam Smith who provides this new dignity to greed (Lerner, 1937, ix). Kenneth Arrow and Frank Hahn in the General Equilibrium Analysis (1971), for example, implicitly assume that Adam Smith's self-interest is the greed that promotes economic efficiency (quoted in Evensky, 1993, 203). Walter Williams (1999), a devoted follower of Smith, writes in his column that, "Free markets, private property rights, voluntary exchange, and greed produce preferable outcomes most times and under most conditions." These pronouncements have become part of the cultural …

A Measure Of Entrepreneurial Risk Preference And Optimism Using Field Experiments, Mark Schneider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous studies have underscored the economic importance of the role of the entrepreneur, and empirical studies testing the nature of the entrepreneur are notably lacking. This study directly addresses this issue by examining newly gathered field data which captures the decision making and risk behaviors for a group of high-technology entrepreneurs. Two decision making tasks were used to elicit risk aversion measures and to test for any 'joy of winning' or judgmental errors, possibly in the form of over optimistic behavior. These elicitations were made with the use of multiple price formats and winner's curse experiments. 62 responses were collected …

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of A Specific After-School Academic Intervention Program On The Success Of At Risk Students, Thomas A. Smith

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Law And Economics Of Development And Environment: An Introduction To The Symposium, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

South Dakota State University Students And Debt Management, Katherine Delaney, Tamara Sinning, Ashley Berndt

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

Money! It comes in slowly and disappears faster than students ever thought possible. People are falling into more debt than ever before, especially college students. Where does all the hard-earned money go? How can students develop habits that help them keep track of their spending and not fall deep into debt? The purpose of our research is to investigate how money can be used wisely and how to make good financial spending decisions. College students' debt behavior is important because today's students are the workforce of tomorrow. A plan is needed to help students learn how to handle today's financial …

Are Two Knaves Better Than One? Every Man A Knave: Hume, Buchanan, And Musgrave's View On Economics And Government, Andrew Farrant, Maria Pia Paganelli

Economics Faculty Research

It is commonplace to view market agents as self-interested knaves, while government agents are either as knaves or public-spirited angels. What are the consequences of these different motivational assumptions in modeling governmental and market behavior? We compare David Hume, James M. Buchanan, and Richard Musgrave. We claim that Hume, the only one thinking consistently in terms of the worst-case, offers a second best solution for both the government and the economy, which may turn out to be the best possible solution given human nature. Because of the reciprocal check, two knaves are better than one. More is preferred to less …

Do Government Sponsored Vocational Training Programs Help The Unemployed Find Jobs? Evidence From Russia, Anton Nivorozhkin, Eugenity Nivorozhkin

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The study estimates the employment effect of vocational training programs for the unemployed in urban Russia. The results of propensity score matching indicate that training programs had a non-negative overall effect on the program participants relative to non-participants.

A Report To The Urban League Of Greater Cleveland: An Assessment Of Business Support Services Available To Existing And Start-Up Small Businesses In The City Of Cleveland, Stuart Mendel

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Developing small businesses is a way to concentrate wealth, employ city residents, improve neighborhood amenities, and provide entrepreneurial role models in urban neighborhood communities currently bereft of such. In a city where well over half of the resident population belong to groupings of people traditionally in the minority, and whose ranking is high in terms of concentrated poverty, nurturing existing and new small minority business enterprises makes good policy sense and offers a systematic intervention strategy to alleviate poverty. This report has been completed to help leadership organizations such as the Urban League of Greater Cleveland and policy-makers such as …

The Market Attitudes Inventory: The Development And Testing Of Reliability And Validity, Noreen Lephardt, Charles Breeden

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

In this article we report the development of a 22-statement survey that measures attitudes towards the market system. We report on the testing of the Market Attitude Inventory (MAI) for reliability and validity. Mean scores on the instrument are reported for a random sample of Midwest high school social studies teachers. We conclude that the MAI is a valid and reliable instrument. The MAI has applications in research, educational outcome assessment, and teaching pedagogy for the measurement and evaluation of attitudes and values towards the workings of the market system in the US.

Information Diffusion In A Cobweb World, Miao Grace Wang, M. C. Sunny Wong

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Based on an assumption of one-way learning, Granato and Wong (2004) consider a framework with two groups of agents, Group L and Group H, where Group L is less "attentive" and uses the expectations of the more or highly "attentive" Group H to update their forecasts. The paper shows the "boomerang effect," which is defined as a situation where the inaccurate forecasts of a less attentive group confound a more attentive group's forecasts. This extended paper relaxes the one-way learning assumption and investigates the case that both groups are learning from each other, i.e., dual learning. Simulations suggest that a …

Bank Rop Article, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (2005, July 20). Revised banking sector equations [Handwritten notes]. Anwar Shaikh, PhD, personal archives.

• Shaikh, A. (2004, October 8). Implications of profit rate arbitrage [Paper with handwritten annotations]. Anwar Shaikh, PhD, personal archives.

• Shaikh, A., & Moudud, J. K. (2003, October 30). A classical determination of the loan rate of interest [Draft manuscript]. Anwar Shaikh, PhD, personal archives.

• Shaikh, A. (2004, October 7). Closures of the interest rate model: Panico’s closures and a Marxian/Keynesian closure [Typed notes]. Anwar Shaikh, PhD, personal archives.

• Shaikh, A. (2002, January 8). Our interest rate theory [Paper]. Anwar Shaikh, PhD, …

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Commodity Price Fluctuations: A Century Of Analysis, Walter C. Labys

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Commodity prices again! The twentieth century has only been the latest spectator to the impacts and importance of commodity price fluctuations. It is reasonably well known that commodity price records have come down to us from the ancient civilizations of India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Earlier in the century, formal research began on the relationships between agricultural demand, supply and prices in a market context. This research not only evolved in sophistication but extended to mineral and energy commodities. Also at the beginning of the century, some of the earliest work took place on applying statistical methods to price …

Assessing Demographic Changes And Income Inequalities: A Case Study Of West Virginia, Yohannes G. Hailu, Tesfa Gebremedhin, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

The study examines the trends in demographic changes and income inequalities in West Virginia from 1990 to 2000. The relationship between economic growth and income inequality is tested using a system of equations model and county level data. The empirical results indicate that except for 65 years and above age group, income inequality increased in all other age groups. The highest increase was in the age group under 25 years and those 35 to 44 years. Using 3-Stage-Least-Squares estimations, the endogenous dependent variable per capita income growth was positively related with population and employment growth, but it is significantly and …

Factors Influencing Venture Capital Availability In Rural States: Possible Lessons Learned From West Virginia, David W. Hughes, Kris Mallory, Mihaela A. Szabo

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Venture capital has been identified by many as a vital element in the rapid economic growth of certain regions. The lack of access to capital, especially equity capital, has been identified as a major constraint to the economic growth of rural areas (i.e., venture capital access, as a centripetal force, concentrates rather than disperses economic activity). Researchers have advanced a focus on primarily urban sectors, such as information technologies, higher administration costs due to a lack of deal flow, and a limited support network for entrepreneurs as explanations for the lack of venture capital in rural areas. Yet, some venture …

Loglinear Residual Tests Of Moran’S I Autocorrelation: An Application To Kentucky Breast Cancer Data, Ge Lin, Tonglin Zhang

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Spatial regressions have been widely used, but their use with the permutation tests of residuals either in linear or loglinear models is rarely seen. In the present study, we have linked the Cliff-Ord permutation test of Moran’s I on linear regression errors to loglinear regression residuals under asymptotic normality. We devised both Pearson residual Moran’s IP R and deviance residual Moran’s IDR tests and applied them to a set of log-rate models for early stage and late-stage breast cancer together with socioeconomic and access-to-care data in Kentucky. The results showed that socioeconomic and access-to-care variables were sufficient to account for …